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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22375564">wanna play cheat now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolix/pseuds/prolix'>prolix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>snake eyed [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Getting Together, Ignore Your Romantic Insecurities by Trying to Invent Time Travel, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Multi, Other, They/Them Pronouns for Brainstorm, canon adjacent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:21:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22375564</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolix/pseuds/prolix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Brainstorm doesn’t need Perceptor as competition,” Nautica says, as though she’s sharing some kind of great secret, “they’ve already got themself to compete against.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brainstorm &amp; Chromedome (Transformers), Brainstorm/Perceptor (Transformers), Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nautica/Velocity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>snake eyed [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610659</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>wanna play cheat now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>well.<br/>being in the headspace to write something like this again is wild - snake eyed had a very personally introspective tone, and this is kind of just... i spy but with coping mechanisms?</p>
<p>muse(ic) is mask of my own face by lemon demon (because honestly what else was it gonna be?)<br/>title again comes from black mambo by glass animals</p>
<p>enjoy, and i love you!<br/>- p</p>
<p>timeline’s a little wonky on this one because it’s an alternate perspective in the same universe and brainstorm’s backstory needed retrofitting, but just pay attention to whirl decking fort max and whirl joining the down low club in snake eyed if you want the sequence of events and you’ll be fine</p>
<p>obligatory warning label (part one) : lots of trying to deal with anxiety - descriptions of minor panic attacks, managing self-worth and fear of abandonment, and unhealthy coping mechanisms (nothing violent or graphic)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the summer before they apply to college that Brainstorm stands outside in the middle of an August rainstorm and screams. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rain is warm and the thunder rolling in from the east is barely over the tips of the mountains, but it still manages to rattle their teeth. It only takes a few seconds before the water starts to slip over the cuffs of their jeans and into their shoes, thin puddles spraying muddy backwash at their laces, but there’s nothing to be felt other than the thick raw </span>
  <em>
    <span>joy </span>
  </em>
  <span>in their throat as they take a shot at splitting open the sky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s year four of Kimia.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This time it’ll work. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Take a step back, look for the bigger picture.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’ll come to you, eventually.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm’s not used to being liked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They used to go by something else, for a while - something a little shorter, a little too rough around the edges, frayed out like fabric (just like - ), but there’s no one and nothing that makes it through Kimia without getting a nickname. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>These days Brainstorm’s got a short list of things they like, a backpack with everything they own stuffed inside, and a class schedule. For a Kimia kid, it’s like crash-landing on an alien planet with the air in your lungs and nothing else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Alien planet, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Brainstorm thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>not too far off. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kimia is a huge campus, basically its own zip code, with shared dorms for underclassmen and private rooms for the upperclassmen, classrooms the size and quality of the college’s down the block. The average student plays at least one instrument and speaks two languages conversationally by the time they apply. By the time they graduate from college, half of them will be nominated for the MacArthur Grant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm’s not sure which half they fall into yet, but they can take an educated guess.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(For the record, Brainstorm’s got no rhythm whatsoever, and speaks three languages upon applying fluently, two from home and one they picked up as a kid because it seemed handy.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kimia’s pivotal. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>all of it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kimia’s where Brainstorm meets Chromedome and, later, Perceptor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One’s a massive douchebag with a complex and the insatiable need to be the wittiest, the cleverest, the most unbearably sharpest one-liner delivering-est </span>
  <em>
    <span>best. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He’s Brainstorm’s roommate for their entire four year tenure. Brainstorm </span>
  <em>
    <span>adores</span>
  </em>
  <span> Chromedome, and tells him so by interrupting him as often as possible and being an obnoxious thorn in his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One’s a massive douchebag with a complex and the truly, horrifyingly, gut-punchingly awful thing about him is that he is the best. Perceptor’s his lab partner for their entire four year tenure, and he’s the most intelligent person Brainstorm’s ever met since -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s safe to say they </span>
  <em>
    <span>adore </span>
  </em>
  <span>him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Here’s the thing about Brainstorm:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s nothing they can’t learn within two hours - political theories, complex calculus, laws of thermodynamics, geomagnetism, name it. They could read in two different languages by three, could spell any word pitched to them by five, skipped two grades in elementary and another in middle school. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But by the time Kimia sends them their acceptance letter, they have exactly zero friends. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At first, it wasn’t from lack of trying, but they’ve always had something better to do than hang out at the park or pick teams for recess. After a while it just… didn’t matter anymore. They’ve never been accused of not having their eye on a goal far bigger than them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That changes within six hours of being on Kimia’s campus. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, hi,” says the kid lying on the mattress pushed up against the only window, all limbs and shaggy grown-out hair, “I’m Tumbler - was wondering when you’d get here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two hours after that, it changes again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello,” says the kid with the stiffest upper lip Brainstorm’s ever seen, holding himself like some kind of weapon that might misfire at any moment, eyes all sharp pretty crystalline blues and isn’t that a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crying shame, </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I suppose we’ll be lab partners, I’m looking forward to working with you. Perceptor, by the way.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a phrase that bounces around Brainstorm’s head while they work after hours some nights years later, like an old Windows screensaver, endlessly looping:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(I’m looking forward to working with you.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It almost makes them want to laugh, now, or else do something a little more reckless, but they keep it contained so Perceptor won’t glance at them, irritated. He likes silence, and Brainstorm can’t understand how it’s possible to </span>
  <em>
    <span>sit with your own thoughts</span>
  </em>
  <span> for hours without some kind of reprieve or blunt weapon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At Kimia, there wasn’t a lot of time between getting the idea and starting it, and Brainstorm’s kept that frenetic, manic pace in their work through into college. If their hands aren’t moving then what’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>point, </span>
  </em>
  <span>if they’re not measuring every conceivable angle and creating completely new angles and measuring those too for the hell of it then why </span>
  <em>
    <span>bother</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You eaten today?” Chromedome asks them later after Perceptor’s packed up to get to lecture, and the statistics on that are a little skewed but Brainstorm’s good with data that doesn’t play fair and they know he asks them the same question around five-point-three times a week.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why, offering to take me out to dinner?” Brainstorm replies absently. They hear Chromedome snort from across the lab table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s noon, Storm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lunch, then,” Brainstorm says, glancing up for the first time in hours with a sunny smile, “sounds great, thanks for offering!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome rolls his eyes, but he ends up paying for cheap Chinese take out at the student union after Brainstorm eventually manages to unglue themself from the lab table. It’s not like it’s the first time they’ve successfully gotten him to fork over cash - Brainstorm’s not good with money.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Seen Whirl lately?” Chromedome asks them when they sit on the green, leaned back to back against each other like it’s their default state to gravitate toward one another. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Magnetism, complementary poles, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Brainstorm thinks, spearing a piece of broccoli with their chopsticks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Down Low club meeting last week,” they reply, “but he’s been holed up with Cyclonus and little panic legs since. Nautica’s been at the clinic for her </span>
  <em>
    <span>internship, </span>
  </em>
  <span>too, the one that requires her to gaze lovingly into Velocity’s eyes like they’re in some kind of fanfiction.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome shoves them lightly, but it’s poorly timed enough to almost make them choke around a mouthful of rice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t be a dick,” he reminds.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not my fault if all of my friends are too horny to spend time with me,” Brainstorm whines.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome’s shoulders untense against the line of their back, head knocking into their jaw as he leans back and watches the clouds overhead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m literally right here,” he says, and it’s sharp as much as it’s soft. Chromedome gets </span>
  <em>
    <span>attached</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it’s his default state.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Brainstorm sighs, “you’re here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>These are the days just before Brainstorm starts carrying the briefcase around.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Everything in its place, everything perfectly synched, everything </span>
  <em>
    <span>neat </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>convenient</span>
  </em>
  <span> - that’s never how Brainstorm’s mind has operated, so it’s difficult to put the pieces into place tidily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes something like this:</span>
</p>
<p><span>The summer before starting Kimia, they meet Quark. Quark is summertime and the cold dead of winter at the same time and Brainstorm is delighted</span> <span>by the poetry of it all. They meet at camp, like all true love stories go when you’re a nerd with no friends to speak of.</span></p>
<p>
  <span>Quark likes quantum mechanics and has read everything Einstein’s ever written three times over in equal measures of fanboy adoration and starvation-struck scientific </span>
  <em>
    <span>hunger. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Quark’s a nickname his family picked up after his interests turned from the observable to the theoretical. Brainstorm chatters at him every single day about mathematics, physics, Newton’s Laws and Zeno’s Paradoxes and -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re very loud,” Quark tells them one day, glasses reflecting summer sunlight, nose scrunched up and textbook held tight to his chest, cold as ice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>First year of Kimia, Brainstorm meets Perceptor. Perceptor’s all sorts of sharp angles stacked on top of each other, a few inches shorter than them but he holds himself like some kind of </span>
  <em>
    <span>monolith. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Perceptor’s quick and can spit out answers to quadruple-digit multiplication problems easier than any TI-85, likes biology as much as he likes astrophysics, could triple major all four years of college without a single break in expression. Perceptor’s a nickname his roommate gives him within the first few hours of knowing him, and it sticks like welded metal. Brainstorm chatters at him about chemistry and Hawking Radiation and bioengineering and -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need to finish this equation, Brainstorm,” Perceptor sighs over their shared lab table one day, but there are those sharp angles poking out through his voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And at the end of their second year of college, Brainstorm buys a briefcase. It’s shiny yellow faux-leather. There’s simply too </span>
  <em>
    <span>much </span>
  </em>
  <span>of their project by this point - papers and thumb drives and entire assembled components, schematics drawn on actual, honest-to-god blueprints as well as cafe napkins - and it never occurs to them that they can simply leave it alone, unsupervised, un-tinkered with, for a few hours.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(It’ll come to you eventually.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Brainstorm carries around a copy of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Brief Answers to Big Questions</span>
  </em>
  <span> during their second year of Kimia, and they hate the idea of marking pages with dog ears almost as much as Perceptor does, but there’s one section they’ve allowed themself to underline in shaky graphite lead.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(If one made a research grant application to work on time travel it would be dismissed immediately.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Kimia’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>pivotal.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome meets Rewind in their third year of Kimia.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome’s their best friend. Chromedome’s their </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>friend, Brainstorm remembers to correct themself. He’s the patron saint of lost causes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Things go wrong very quickly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know I have absolutely no experience with any of this, right?” Brainstorm asks, hanging upside down off the lip of their bed and attempting to do their English homework through the headrush. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Othello </span>
  </em>
  <span>is a bore and they refuse to consider it sitting upright.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s… cool?” Chromedome says, ignoring them completely, pacing back and forth from one wall to the other, “Are people in high school actually supposed to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>cool? </span>
  </em>
  <span>This is a nerd academy!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A nerd academy you got into and attend,” Brainstorm replies, unbothered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He plays </span>
  <em>
    <span>guitar, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Storm,” Chromedome whines, high-pitched and keening, “and not in a douchebag way, either! He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really fucking good at playing guitar. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And he told me I seem like the kind of guy who listens to Hozier, which I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do - </span>
  </em>
  <span>is that allowed? How is he pulling it off?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s four foot ten, darling,” Brainstorm mutters around their pencil. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome finally looks over at them, eyes big wide hazel chasms of teenage heartbreak. Brainstorm looks away from him and drops their stack of papers to the floor with a sigh. Chaos theory dictates they fall in completely random and entirely structured patterns, unable to be duplicated in any kind of laboratory environment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Either get someone else to vent to or ask him out already,” they say, crossing their arms and attempting to look as serious as humanly possible with most of their blood pooling around the meninges of their skull, “but stop fucking talking about Rewind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome huffs. Upside down, he looks even more ridiculous and gangly than usual.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You owe me,” he says, “I listen to you sulk about Perceptor every five hours.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck you, I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>sulk,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Brainstorm protests, and the breathlessness is probably lack of circulation, “bastard.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Asshole.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome grins at them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few months later, he and Rewind are dating.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This is fine, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Brainstorm reasons with themself, already running the numbers on how many days of the week Chromedome has snuck out of their dorm and into his boyfriend’s - upperclassmen get single rooms, and while they’d chosen to stick together, Rewind had done the sensible thing and could now watch Netflix at 3 am in peace. They multiply by four, convert it into a percentage, and scowl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This is fine, </span>
  </em>
  <span>they insist silently, bundling blankets around their shoulders and curling in tight to avoid the fact that the lack of obnoxious snoring from the other side of the room is driving them up a wall, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Chromedome’s your friend.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s your </span>
  </em>
  <span>only </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It would be easier if Brainstorm hated Rewind, they think. They think about it often, actually. Probably more than they should.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Problem is: they don’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rewind’s a viciously smart five-foot-nothing little motherfucker by the time they hit college: plays any instrument you can chuck at him like a maestro, speaks every language Brainstorm does and then a few extras thrown on top solely to make their temper flare, is sweet and gentle and more in love with Chromedome than Brainstorm’s seen anyone be (and there were a few, back in the early days of Kimia, but that’s -). He makes Chromedome happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They love Rewind to death, and that’s the hardest thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chromedome says, popping off of his lab stool next to them and stretching, “we’re still doing Star Wars prequels after class, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm hums, but something catches on the edge of their attention and makes them glance up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not gonna be home tonight?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome blinks at them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m helping Rewind with a documentary assignment, Storm. I told you that literally two hours ago.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm bites their lip and looks back to the laptop in front of them, the 3D visualizer open and idling pale blue with a half-constructed circuit board.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right. Wasn’t paying attention.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” Chromedome repeats flatly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you mad at me or something?” Brainstorm asks, too sudden to try to stifle it, fingers going tense over the trackpad, playing red rover between slight panic and outright horror.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Am I - ?” Chromedome stops putting his jacket on, the letterman Rewind got him, and suddenly Brainstorm is fully in the teeth-searing grip of panic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have to tell me if you’re mad at me,” they insist, “that was the deal, if you’re mad then you have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>say something </span>
  </em>
  <span>because I won’t get it unless you do and -“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Brainstorm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their teeth bite into their tongue like a reflex, like being quiet is something they’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>known how to do, but Brainstorm adores Chromedome and they love Rewind and they always, always have and it would be easier if they didn’t, right? It would be so much easier.</span>
</p>
<p><span>Chromedome spends 78% of his nights with Rewind instead of Brainstorm. </span><em><span>Instead of. </span></em><span>The jealousy and loneliness</span> <span>are </span><em><span>carnivores, </span></em><span>complementary poles, and sometimes they wonder if Chromedome knows he’s doing it.</span></p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome crouches in front of where they sit and tilts his head. After a second, he reaches up and flicks their chin, rests his cheek against their leg so Brainstorm’s hands can steady themselves in his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not mad at you,” he says quietly, “I’d tell you if I was mad at you, I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm sighs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry,” they manage after a while.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“S’okay,” Chromedome says, “but you’re coming over with me tonight. Rewind can deal with the prequels, he has headphones.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm snorts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t believe you’re dating a guy who doesn’t recognize the genius of </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s over, Anakin - I have the high ground.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You underestimate my power,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Chromedome disagrees, grinning up at them, and Brainstorm laughs.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(They still tinker with the schematic on their laptop while the movie plays, even as Chromedome drapes himself over their shoulders and whines into their ear - it’s hard, breaking habits.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“My dude.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Brainstorm responds, not bothering to look up. They’re very good at identifying voices - it takes too much time to glance at every single person who greets them in the lab in order to recognize them. Efficiency, child of necessity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids takes their tone in stride without hesitation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My girl,” he corrects effortlessly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Try again. What do you want?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pal.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Acceptable. What is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t I just come over and hang out with the cool kids for a while?” Skids asks lightly, propping himself up onto the lab table with enviable ease. He tugs at one of Brainstorm’s curls until they make a face and swat at his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not historically, my dear, sweet interruption to </span>
  <em>
    <span>very important </span>
  </em>
  <span>work.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids laughs and taps the edge of the paper they’re poring over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nautica said I should come drag you out of your little hermit shell, we’re gonna go sit outside the student union and piss off the philosophy majors.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm raises an eyebrow at him, resting their chin in the palm of one hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids is wonderful and naturally perfect at everything and can pick up their train of thought in less time than it takes most people to blink, and they both hate each other so much it’s become kind of a joke. They’re also both easily bored - where </span>
  <em>
    <span>else </span>
  </em>
  <span>is Brainstorm going to find this kind of entertainment?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have… certain thoughts on Wittgenstein.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids beams at them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Awesome,</span>
  </em>
  <span> because I honestly can’t fucking stand Sartre’s No Exit and I want as many nerds to know it as possible. Well?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As Brainstorm grabs their coat and the briefcase lying beside their chair, they hear Skids whistle low and teasing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Didn’t realize you’d committed to the 60’s professor look already - you’re like, twelve, why don’t you wear anything other than business casual?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm sends him a vicious look and tilts their chin up as they walk by toward the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>practical</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and backpacks compress the spine; I don’t want to give up my height advantage on you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids laughs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nautica is a walking sunbeam and Brainstorm’s entire life is pulled into orbit around her - besides Chromedome, she’s probably their only real friend. Skids is a non-starter; he’s an intrusion on their workflow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pulls the briefcase behind her back as soon as she’s within reach, and Brainstorm bites back a yelp they can’t entirely muffle as they try to snatch it away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh-uh,” she tells them, Skids grinning and cooing mockingly behind her like the </span>
  <em>
    <span>actual blight </span>
  </em>
  <span>he is, “no more work today!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not like I don’t have homework to do,” Brainstorm hisses, clumsily trying to get around her, but Nautica sidesteps them and grabs their outstretched hand as she does, entwining their fingers. The briefcase is angled away with expert precision on her other side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know what I mean,” she says, “and besides, it’s not like you carry homework in this thing. I’ve seen your dorm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Skids clicks his tongue, leaning in to get a better look at the vivid yellow vinyl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>you carry in there, Sergeant Pepper, the other three Beatles?” He asks brightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm cuts him a glare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do not. Mock. My briefcase.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nautica squeezes their hand to hush them, tugging them along behind her (still out of briefcase range) toward a shade tree on the edge of the green.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Think we’ll see Ultra Magnus if we wait long enough?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm and Skids groan in unison.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They meet Nautica a few days into college when classes begin properly, and she’s a perfect, sweet beacon of </span>
  <em>
    <span>please learn to fucking control yourself.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>They share an engineering lecture together - Brainstorm tunes out everything other than the specifications of the open lab - and when they’re dismissed at the top of the hour they lean back in their seat and yawn, “you would think for someone who uses the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>quantum </span>
  </em>
  <span>as much as they do, they’d know the definition.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The person beside them giggles, stifling the sound with a press of knuckles to their mouth before someone overhears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nautica’s pretty, warm brown skin and eyes and hair that ends in purple-dyed tips, buttons on her bag that flash with a mirror shine. Brainstorm feels themself smile when she leans in toward them conspiratorially.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could almost make a drinking game out of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm laughs.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Campus genius needs competition,” Nautica says sagely before they start carrying the briefcase, smile all good-humor and mischief, “all I’m saying is, with as much love as possible, y’know, I could destroy you at calculus.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm wants to will themself into the moment, to smile back and try for charming, end up somewhere just off the mark because they’ve always been a terrible shot. But instead they just huff and flick their straw wrapper at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maccadam’s is as familiar as the lab - caffeine is the child of necessity, something like that. Beside them, Nightbeat laughs and twirls his pen between his fingers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Campus genius </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>competition,” he says, dipping his voice down into a stage whisper as though Brainstorm isn’t four inches to his right, “GPA can’t save the boy from Perceptor testing out of his gen eds.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not a boy right now,” Brainstorm corrects smoothly, tipping their chin up and snatching the pen from Nightbeat, “and Perceptor can take English with Megatron if he wants to, I’ve still got the lab credits to graduate earlier than him </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>I’m more socially adjusted, so there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you?” Nightbeat laughs. Nautica smiles at their offended expression and leans across the table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Brainstorm doesn’t need Perceptor as competition,” she says, as though she’s sharing some kind of great secret, “they’ve already got themself to compete against.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I want it on record that I’m extremely not okay with this,” Brainstorm says to the room at large.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rung sits back in his high-topped chair with an appeasing smile, but it makes Brainstorm’s teeth grate together instead of unclenching.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can leave at any time,” he invites.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow, that makes it worse. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm sits on the couch opposite his evil mastermind-looking chair and pointedly stares at the door handle like they’re considering it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your advisor thought it would be best if you at least attempted some form of therapy, Brainstorm,” Rung continues in that same implacable, gentle tone, “and after reading over the log of lab hours he’s kept on you, I’m starting to see why.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm snorts and makes a dismissive gesture.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Xaaron is an idiot and couldn’t give me the atomic weight of plutonium if I pointed to it on the periodic table. Aren’t colleges supposed to applaud hard work? I’m the </span>
  <em>
    <span>pinnacle </span>
  </em>
  <span>of scientific endeavor, y’know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Colleges are supposed to provide support structures for their students,” Rung corrects with a growing spark of bemusement behind the glare off his glasses, “both intellectually and mentally. How often do you work in the Iacon lab?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm narrows their eyes at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Whirl’s told me about you,” they reply sharply, “he says you’re a ‘tweed-obsessed geek without self-preservation skills’.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The spark in Rung’s expression slants hard into outright amusement, which makes Brainstorm cross their arms. It feels like being dug into with a scalpel, as exact as it is brutal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re very bad at dodging questions,” Rung informs them, “especially because I know Whirl would never say something like that - he’s insulted me directly before, and his choice of epithets were more imaginative.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm bites down around an indignant shriek, forces themself to glare passively back without moving a muscle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just channel Perceptor, ice-cold motherfucker all the way down</span>
  </em>
  <span>, they tell themself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re very intelligent, Brainstorm,” Rung says, the sudden switch in approach throwing them for a second, “and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that. Let me rephrase my last question to be more illuminating for both of us: how often do you collapse from exhaustion in the Iacon lab?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm flicks their eyes away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Xaaron’s referral to Rung was something of an understood </span>
  <em>
    <span>last resort </span>
  </em>
  <span>between them - Brainstorm couldn’t get thrown out of this place if they tried, but the preoccupation with conduct Xaaron had made their skin prickle. The evens had eventually broken when Brainstorm passed out in the lab again last week and Perceptor had been the one to find them first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Bastard.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their project takes absolute and irrefutable priority - over everything, Brainstorm’s comfortable with admitting, over anything they could otherwise be doing with their time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which includes, coincidentally, wasting an hour trading tête-à-têtes with a grad student acting the soothing presence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Rung acquiesces, holding his hands up flat, “I can tell when someone wants me to give them a moment. Take your time, Brainstorm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They last all of three minutes - they track it, idly, in the back of their head. Silence is </span>
  <em>
    <span>stifling, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the absence of motion or direction, just the uncomfortable humidity-press of </span>
  <em>
    <span>wow, I could literally be doing anything else other than sitting in this exact spot and listening to my heart beat eighty times in a minute.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cool, that was time I’ll never get back - what do you want?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rung raises his eyebrows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“From me, I mean,” Brainstorm clarifies, slumping into the couch until they can feel their spine curve, “an apology? I can promise not to do it again. ‘No more naps in the lab, pinky swear’.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d like you to answer a question for me, actually,” Rung replies, still looking inches from smiling, “if you feel like you can.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm huffs. The absent tapping of their foot is playing a four-four rhythm against the carpet, and they’re subdividing it into measures the way they’ve seen Rewind do when he messes around in Garage Band without really noticing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You haven’t stopped moving since you came in the door,” Rung says, conversational, “and you seem to have a hard time adjusting to silence. Xaaron’s log of your lab hours are almost completely consecutive - you spend a long time working, and only then, I assume once you’re burned out or are accompanied out, do you leave. I’m prefacing this with </span>
  <em>
    <span>evidence</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Brainstorm, because I understand you’re a scientist at heart and I want you to follow my logic here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm feels their molars lock together, perfectly interlaced grooves of bone millennia of evolution in the making. Kimia’s almost three years behind them, the beginning of the project they’ve willingly let consume their life five, and they’ve known Perceptor and Chromedome for even longer. It’s time - the problem is time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Would you like me to help you manage your attention disorder symptoms, or not?” Rung asks gently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And isn’t that a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crying shame.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm was a smart kid. Reading bilingually by three, spelling by five. Three total grades skipped, putting them younger than any of their peers from Kimia. First friend at twelve years old, second at sixteen - four years of interim. It’s time, that’s the problem.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(There’s a night Brainstorm goes to a party. They invite Whirl, who surprisingly shows up. Five minutes into standing around trying to stop the condensation of their thoughts into panic spirals - Fibonacci, nature likes to replicate itself, to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen</span>
  </em>
  <span> - they walk out of the living room and onto the balcony alone.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quark was pretty and gentle and quiet, was prideful and his ego bruised easier than an apple and he was above all </span>
  <em>
    <span>above it all</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Summer lasts four months.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perceptor was his lab partner for four years in Kimia and is sharper than a scalpel and severs their nerve endings just as well. In the almost three years of college Brainstorm’s got tucked under their metaphorical belt, the two of them have shared a lab table yet again for half that and have spoken to each other maybe a dozen times. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(They’re lying; it’s sixteen times, not counting Perceptor simply requesting them to stop talking, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>who would count that.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chromedome and Rewind have been together for four years, Kimia ad infinitum. And that’s when it snaps into place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All of them are graduating in a little over a year. Rounding down for the additional quarter day it takes for the Earth to complete its orbit, that’s three hundred and sixty five total days. They can break it down further, maliciously, into hours and minutes and seconds and each is a linear progression forward that feels like motion but isn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s time. Brainstorm can feel it slipping.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(The night on the balcony, Perceptor steps out exactly ten minutes after Brainstorm does and leans his hips against the railing, looking straight up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi,” they say after a minute.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you say something like ‘nice night out’, I’m going to leave,” Brainstorm warns. It isn’t the tone they wanted to take, too brittle, but there’s tension where they’re gripping the railing already. They can talk to Perceptor for hours, chattering about anything and everything and whatever’s left between, but they can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>talk </span>
  </em>
  <span>to Perceptor. They’ve never been able to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t realize you’d be here,” Perceptor says, as though he hadn’t even heard them, tone featureless and </span>
  <em>
    <span>monolithic </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Brainstorm feels the need for words like a physical weight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And yet here I am, life of the party,” Brainstorm replies. Inanely, they think of asymptotes, the slope of a curve approaching zero on a line that tends to infinity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perceptor sighs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We haven’t spoken much since Kimia, and I wanted to clarify something -“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You ever think about time, Percy?” Brainstorm asks before they can stifle it, spiralling and being snapped into place at the same time, eating up seconds they don’t have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In general?” Perceptor replies, too caught off-guard by the subject change and the old Kimia nickname to try to return to his point, blinking his ice chip eyes. Brainstorm wonders if </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone </span>
  </em>
  <span>calls him Percy anymore, if anyone would try to step to that level of familiarity and then </span>
  <em>
    <span>keep pushing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the sense of time travel,” they clarify.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Perceptor says, easier than breathing, and glances out toward the horizon with unerring accuracy, as though he’s made the calculation in his head a hundred times already, “I don’t really think about fringe theory.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm blinks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fringe theory.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perceptor looks at them, surprised by the amount of venom in their voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Brainstorm could’ve fallen in love with Nautica or Skids or Nightbeat or </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone at all </span>
  </em>
  <span>but instead they fall for Quark with his annoyed sighs and they fall for Chromedome with his tetchy temper before withdrawing that because then instead they fall for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Perceptor - </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s when Whirl starts a fight out in the living room.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The book in their briefcase says </span>
  <em>
    <span>if one made a research grant application to work on time travel it would be dismissed immediately.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow, this manages to hurt more.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm agrees to Xaaron’s insistence that they see Rung on a semi-regular basis to check any “behavioral misconducts” - and Brainstorm actually shivers at that wording - but refuses to relinquish lab time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(They can break the hours down into their component </span>
  <em>
    <span>molecules, </span>
  </em>
  <span>that doesn’t change the fact that they’re moving in a direction they have no choice but to follow, tending toward infinity.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you’re misunderstanding this as a request,” Xaaron says with a raised eyebrow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brainstorm blinks back at him guilelessly. Their grip on the handle of the briefcase is vice like.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The community college down the street has open labs, too,” is all they say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re a terror,” Xaaron tells them as they stand to leave, not unkindly, “but don’t let that distract you from the fact that either I or Animus can request your suspension.”</span>
</p>
<p><span>Brainstorm shrugs, feeling their temper thrash. Before Kimia they would have simply made themself as small as possible, as meek and apologetic as necessary, the kid with no friends and an encyclopedic knowledge of solar composition and how to build a combustion engine from scratch, miniaturize it, double its output, make it something original and new and </span><em><span>unique </span></em><span>and finally, finally Brainstorm’s asking themself the question that comes along for everyone afraid of the entire world’s rejection sooner or later: why shouldn’t</span> <span>they </span><em><span>use</span></em><span> that?</span></p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m a Kimia kid,” they say, “you throw me out, I finish my degree somewhere else, and in ten years when you send the emails asking for donations to the college, I send you a picture of my approved grants instead, okay?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>x</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the morning, when Animus walks around each of the lab tables and asks his students what they’re preparing to study for the final project, Perceptor responds with “paradoxes in general physics” in a perfectly neutral voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Brainstorm slips their briefcase onto the table, clasps closed tight, five years of theorizing ad infinitum held like Schrodinger’s fucking cat between the two of them, in their grip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Eventually.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They lock their eyes onto Perceptor’s and say, smiling -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fringe theory. Time travel.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
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